Wild Honey Pie and Who You Should Build Things For

It’s buried toward the beginning of the White Album. One of the greatest albums of all time. The double album is like a greatest hits for any other band. For the Beatles, it’s just another incredible album after another (Magical Mystery Tour) and before the one to follow (Yellow Submarine).

Somewhere in their drug induced brilliance, Paul and the boys hit a rough spot.

The Wikipedia page references a book about Paul, in which he describes how the song came about. I can summarize it for you: the rest of the dudes weren’t looking, or were out of town, so he decided to strangle a cat with loose guitar strings while a woman’s leg was severed with a lawnmower in the background.

They’re artists. To The Beatles it probably sounded amazing. To everyone else, it’s like a dying hound in the middle of a fine dining establishment.

I put out a lot of Wild Honey Pies.

A lot more of those than Blackbirds. Or even Rocky Raccoons.

Here’s what I know: you have to create dozens of Wild Honey Pies to produce a single While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Maybe The Beatles didn’t, but most of us do.

And even then, there are people who claim Wild Honey Pie is brilliant, the greatest filler song ever.

You’ll mess up repeatedly. And there’ll be people like me out there to chide you (If you’re the creator of Wild Honey Pie). But you don’t do things for those people. Screw those people.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I want to do so much, but I don’t out of fear or being labeled preachy, or being called out as an impostor. And so I tamper things in light of criticisms that haven’t even come yet.

I’m working on it. In the meantime, I’ll make a few Wild Honey Pies. Some people might like them. Most won’t. But they’re the only way to get to Sexy Sadie.